Better Project Management Using Asana

When you’ve got several projects on the go at once or you’re tackling the mother of all projects on a tight deadline, you need to stay on top and organized. Easier said than done, right?

You could do it the super hard way and keep all of your priorities and responsibilities in your head…which is the scariest sentence I’ve ever read. But why not make your project management processes a little easier and enlist the help of Asana - a tool to help you manage your personal and professional projects with ease.

To give you a flavour of what Asana aims to do, let’s quickly look at the origin of the term.

‘Asana’ might be familiar if you’re a yoga buff, as it’s a word that means ‘seat’. Why seat? Well, adopting the right seat or pose in yoga means that you can be comfortable and calm. So, Asana basically wants to put you in a good place with good vibes. No complaints about that.

And there are plenty of ways Asana can help to relax your working processes:

Structure your Project

Asana is pretty simple to get your head around and it helps you to organize the structure of your project and sort out the hierarchy.

• You can use Workspaces to set up individual tasks/ideas, as each workspace is a separate unit. Make sure you don’t have too many, as it’ll get overwhelming and you’ll have too many spaces to move between. It makes sense to have different workspaces for different clients. You’ll then create projects within a workspace.
• Projects lets you highlight how many projects you’ve got on the go and within each project, you can set up the tasks and ideas you need to complete – you can color code and filter by priority, assigned people and tags. You can create template projects, so you can go through the same tasks each time you start a project.
  You’ll also be able to access a project graph, which gives you a visual aid to show how far you’ve got with your project. It’s a handy data visualization tool.
• Inside a project, you can set up your tasks and sub-tasks. These make up your to-do list. When you complete tasks, they’ll get grayed out, so you know they’re done – the live tasks will still show as incomplete. You can assign other members of your team to tasks and it’ll show up with their icon next to a task. You can then click on each member to see how they’re doing with each of their assigned tasks.

Example:

          a)  In your relevant Workspace > Create your Project
          b)  Add your team members
          c)  Create Sections and add relevant tasks
          d)  Assign yourself to tasks so you can view them and decide on deadlines
          e)  Give more details to tasks with sub-tasks, notes, attachments
           f)  Delegate your team members to specific tasks
           g)  Work, work, work

Keeping your Projects Updated

Most projects require various different materials and assets that help to communicate the ideas behind them. Asana makes it easy to sync your projects with your accounts like Dropbox, Google Drive and Box so you can attach files from your shared folders. You can also sync with tools like MailChimp and Slack too.

Whether you need to attach ebooks, FAQs, infographics etc – Asana will let you access your most up-to-date shared folders.

You can update the status of your project and make it simple for users to goal track and maintain project transparency.

Managing your Schedule

Meetings and conference calls are a big part of any project and Asana is perfect for keeping on top of correspondence and judging when you need to meet with colleagues.

You can pull in tasks from various projects using tags, so that some specific tasks exist in various different projects. This means that you can create a clear agenda for a meeting by checking a project and immediately seeing the tasks that need to be discussed.

Communication made Easy

Using your email inbox as your hub for project management isn’t a good idea. You can’t segment and organize all of your information properly. All of your requests, project context and content will be all over the place. Asana replaces the need to use email for project management and collaboration.

Asana embeds email and comms in its project management tools. People can leave comments under tasks and you will receive notifications about followers and their activity and feedback.

My Tasks lets you see the tasks that you’ve been assigned to and you can mark them with details about when you’re going to work on them. This helps to prevent overbooking and allows you to easily delegate tasks.

My Inbox will give you details about notifications and comments about the projects and tasks you’re involved in.

Staying on top of your Content Calendar

Asana’s task and sub-task sections make it the perfect tool for sorting out your content calendar and improving accountability. You can expand your tasks and give more detail for other team members, by adding outlines and notes. The calendar function in Asana is really user-friendly and easy to see where you are and what’s coming up.

You can create content libraries too. For example, if you have a new member joining your team, you can direct them towards an onboarding project and they can access the content they’ll need to perform certain tasks etc. You can essentially create a user manual for new starters.

Final Thoughts

Asana is a great tool for organizing your personal and professional life. It can help you to expertly manage any projects you’ve got coming up and it’s perfect for using with a team or individually. Utilize your time effectively and maximize your potential.

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